Six Customer Experience Game-Changers

Six Customer Experience Game-Changers

Many companies have too many disparate customer systems that create confusion—not cohesion—preventing customers from having a positive experience.

Disruption #1: Smarter Algorithms

Smarter algorithms enable machines to learn about customer preferences with every interaction. With this, service associates can better identify why a customer is connecting to the contact center for more effective support.

Disruption #1: Smarter Algorithms

Macy's takes advantage of this tech to meld online/offline customer experiences in determining whether to pull inventory from a fulfillment center or a local store to meet shoppers' needs.

Disruption #2: Video Engagement

Research shows that consumers are more engaged by video than text, and they retain more information via video and audio messaging. The Next, Big Thing: Virtual Reality (VR) videos.

Disruption #2: Video Engagement

Mobile video views have risen 367% over the last two years.

Disruption #3: Artificial Intelligence-Powered Voice Recognition

Through advancement such as Amazon Echo's Alexa, companies integrate AI-based voice recognition into products and services, for more personalized, intuitive performance and customer response.

Disruption #3: Artificial Intelligence-Powered Voice Recognition

By 2020, 200 billion searches per month will be conducted using voice.

Disruption #4: Ad Blockers

Consumers will abandon sites if their pages load slowly due to ads. Launching a likely trend, the Apple iPhone 6 operating system allows users to install software that blocks banner ads.

The auto industry received unfavorable attention when two researchers proved they could remotely halt a moving vehicle on a busy highway by hacking into its electronics.

Disruption #6: Strange Bedfellows

As corporate partnerships abound in the interest of better serving customers, 81% of business leaders expect that industry boundaries will blur as ecosystems become increasingly interconnected.

Disruption #6: Strange Bedfellows

The ridesharing site, Lyft, has formed partnerships with Shell and Hertz to offer drivers discounted gas and access to rental cars. GM has invested $500 million in Lyft to develop an on-demand network of self-driving cars.

Nearly nine out of 10 execs view the customer experience as the primary basis for competition this year, according to Gartner. By 2017, half of consumer product investments will be directed toward customer experience innovations. With this in mind, TeleTech has come up with what we'll call the following six customer experience game-changers. The resulting report, titled "6 Disruptive Technologies That Will Transform the Customer Experience in 2016," examines how a host of innovations—including more sophisticated algorithms, artificial intelligence-driven voice recognition and the Internet of things (IoT)—are redefining marketplaces throughout industries. (In the interest of complete disclosure, the sixth game-changer here is more of a business trend than a tech one.) Given the potential to increase competitive value for their companies, CIOs must incorporate these technologies as part of an integrated, cohesive strategy. "(Leaders must) recognize that a single customer experience technology isn't likely to address all of the company's goals," according to the report. "In many cases, companies have a glut of disparate customer systems that don't communicate and share information with each other, preventing customers from receiving consistent and seamless interactions." Quoted statistics were compiled from published research findings from a number of organizations.